Salzburg

Following on from her debut album impressions, featuring chamber music for bassoon and piano, bassoon player Sophie Dervaux is poised to release her second album on the Berlin Classics label. This album marks two premieres: in addition to this being the very first recording of the Concerto no. 2 in C major for bassoon and orchestra by Johann Baptist Vanhal, Ms Dervaux performs as both soloist and conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg.

The Orpheum Foundation, which has been supporting young musicians for more than thirty years, has joined forces with Alpha Classics for a series of recordings devoted to Mozart’s concertos for various instruments. The finest soloists of the young generation have been selected under the artistic direction of Howard Griffiths, a renowned Mozart conductor, who considers that playing his music is like ‘looking in a mirror: you can hear if everything is in place, musicality, intonation, rhythm, phrasing’. For this fifth volume, the American pianist Claire Huangci joins the Mozarteum-Orchester Salzburg and Howard Griffiths, her mentor for the past ten years. For her, she says, these concertos are ‘true musical revelations, works full of virtuosity and imagination’.